No Vacancy
by I.C. Weener
Summary: I hope Viola isn't a Sorel loser.


" _Please make sure this goes right up to the third floor file because I have a transfusion to make."_

\- Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost

* * *

Viola didn't need to be a fortune teller to know she was in unwelcome territory. The ocean moved in pitch black crests. The broken masts of a hundred dead galleons were crashed along the shallows, while fragments of human skeletons covered the barren shores. The horizon was covered in a constant purple overcast that seemed to expand endlessly into the bleak beyond.

And then there was the matter of the giant octopus tentacles trying to kill her. Viola nimbly hopped across the tops of ancient stone crags to keep herself out of the thrashing water a dozen meters below her feet, performing a dangerous balancing act at the same time she was fighting for survival. The crags were the only solid ground she could stand on while scaly black tendrils reached out of the sea and closely flailed around her. Her magic globe hovered by her arm, trailing beside her as she rapidly jumped from crag to crag like a frilled violet butterfly being chased by eight carnivorous centipedes. When one of the squirming limbs came too close, she'd knock it away with a high kick or let her magic globe cut it apart by unleashing a burst of energy shaped like a saw blade.

She heard a gaggle of hearty laughter and catcalls as she struggled for her life against the living black ocean. A pirate crew lead by Cervantes was watching her from the edge of a cliff hanging above the crags. For centuries, young hapless maidens had been tossed overboard into this watery tomb as an offering to the unseen tentacled horrors hiding in the depths, and Cervantes had every intention of making Viola be the next in line for her generation. His less patient crewmen insisted they should skip all the anticipation and just draw their pistols to put her to a quick end. Tricky oracles like her were better off filled with bullets rather than filled with unlucky visions of the future, they all argued. But Cervantes always held them back by shaking his head and waving his arm. He simply continued watching Viola in silence.

The mystic globe sawed through another tentacle, making the entire sea utter a shrill scream of pain. The rest of the tendrils sank back into the waves and finally let Viola alone. The fearsome witch balanced her heels on the tip of the central crag and lifted her head toward the cliff. Cervantes gazed down on her in suspicion. Viola stared back up with her ruby eyes narrowed in defiance.

An undersea earthquake put an abrupt end to their tension. Viola lost her footing as the crag she was standing on shattered to pieces and rained down in peddles. She fell out of the air screaming and splashed into the murky sea, instantly disappearing into the foam.

* * *

Viola was pulled down into the darkness. A stray tentacle had an ironclad grip around her left ankle and was reeling her in despite her desperate efforts to swim away. Her vision became darker and darker as she sank further below the waves and her lungs began to ache for air. Her mind slipped somewhere between consciousness and sleep as fatigue set in.

The vast darkness below her came to life with something that wasn't alive. Pale blue lights reflected off Viola's hazy eyes as she heard soft voices flowing through the water. She saw long wispy forms below her feet that gradually became more distinct as she was pulled closer. When she reached their depth and her toes almost touched the black silt of the ocean floor, she could vividly see they were angelic spirits that glided through the sea's soft currents. The phantom maidens were giggling as they swam around the struggling Viola in a ring. These were lost souls who had been cruelly sacrificed to the waves in the ages past, and Viola brought warm flesh that could give any one of them a second chance at living.

The shadowy wall of seafloor rocks behind Viola started to move. A black tendril looped over her corset and slowly rotated her in the water so she faced away from the ghosts and toward the darkness. The legendary abomination hiding in the deep crawled forward on her endless flailing limbs and revealed herself.

Viola had been ensnared by the Scylla. From her waist to her head, the monster appeared as a beautiful woman with black hair and algae green eyes. The rest of her body was a mountain of colossal cephalopod arms that never ceased quivering.

The tentacle that had already caught one of Viola's ankles spread its reach and bound her legs together. More tentacles slivered through her arms and around her neck as she was carefully drawn toward the Scylla's smiling complexion. Viola thrashed in resistance and sliced through several tendrils with her bladed right hand. The Scylla grimaced and shrieked, but she always seemed to grow back two new tentacles when one had been severed.

The second round battle between Viola and the Scylla didn't last as long as the first round they had fought above the surface of the water. Now the Scylla had the environmental advantage, and all of Viola's efforts to escape only managed to bring her closer to drowning. Oxygen was a greater threat to Viola than any ancient giants from the deep.

Viola was held within arm's reach of the Scylla as her eyes grew heavy and her body grew weaker. The Scylla smiled at her in an almost caring way as she stroked the pearls in Viola's hair with her human fingers. Viola showed the ocean monster only a look of hatred, while the monster showed her nothing but love in return.

The tentacle around Viola's throat gently slithered into a tighter knot, while the tentacles around her waist coiled upwards and applied pressure to her lungs. Viola gave up what little was left of her breath in a reflexive _glup_. Her hold on reality slipped until all she could sense was the distant giggling of the wispy phantoms circling around her. As her body went limp and her world faded almost completely, the tentacle around her neck loosened ever so slightly. She felt something warm and slimy touch her mouth.

The end of one of the Scylla's limbs opened into a starfish shape and covered Viola's nose and lips. A small spark of life returned to Viola's eyes as she suddenly found her able to breathe. The reaction on the uncovered portion of her face was part surprise and part gratitude, but she quickly became relaxed.

Viola was kept barely alive with tainted air. The light toxins venting through the Scylla's tentacle eased her mind into a similar state as when she was breathing mystic vapors to free her consciousness and see past the boundaries of time. When Viola became greedy and breathed too quickly, the tendril around her neck would tighten to slow her down. The Scylla wrapped one of her human arms around Viola's back while pressing her other palm to Viola's chest, guiding her breathing rate by hand so the gentle rising and falling of her lungs matched the slow quivering of the Scylla's gills. The Scylla was preparing her body, weakening her mind while training her instincts to be more receptive.

Drifting between the waking world and prophetic dreams, Viola put up no resistance. Her life was out of her hands. Her only options were to breathe what little precious oxygen the Scylla shared with her, or die in this flooded crypt with salt tearing apart her lungs. The part of her that still had a sense of awareness strangely felt safe in the monster's flailing appendages.

The dead maidens circled closer toward Viola until their tiny jealous voices were echoing in her ears. The Scylla shifted her tentacles so she was holding Viola outward and offering her as to the glowing swarm. She gently pulled the tentacle mask away from the oracle's beautiful tranquil face.

Viola floated in a helpless tentacle-bound daze. The ghostly sirens mischievously glided around her mortal contours, becoming familiar with her shape and anxiously spiraling upward in a race to see who would get her first. The quickest and most clever spirit dissolved into thin threads of blue vapor and playfully slipped through Viola's lips and nostrils. The oracle swayed backwards in a trance as the spirit lightly weaved through her and overwhelmed her sense of being. The rest of the phantom wisps slowed their swimming and glided away from Viola's entrapped form.

Viola's eyes flew open. She suddenly went into convulsions and started to drown again, reacting to the terror of being possessed. The Scylla delicately reeled her back in and sealed the breathing tentacle over her mouth. She guided Viola to breathe in the same rhythm as before, helping her mind relax as the phantom inhabiting her body grew stronger. Viola halfheartedly squirmed her legs in the Scylla's tentacles before becoming paralyzed from the toxins and succumbing to hypnosis.

The oracle closed her eyes and let her arms rest on the writhing tentacles wrapped around her waist. Her head swayed peacefully in the water as she inhaled and exhaled through the breathing tendril exactly as the Scylla wanted. An immense cloud of murky bubbles rose around the sea witch and her captive land witch, consuming both in utter darkness.

* * *

The shore rumbled as a new stone crag rose up from the sea. As they squinted from the edge of the cliff, the murderous pirates could see a soft and tender thing shrouded in black lace, violet ruffles, and dark red roses lying on the peak of the rock. Her magic globe was tucked in her arms like a giant round pearl.

Viola slowly climbed up on her drowsy legs. She stood with her head held down and her hood hiding the top part of her face, while her orb floated lifelessly above her left shoulder. Saltwater washed off of her, making her violet dress sparkle in wet velvet rivulets and her skin shimmer with a spring fresh sheen. The elegant white spirals of her hair sparkled like platinum.

Velvet lifted her head toward the cliff, revealing the angelic smile on her lips and the pale blue glow in her eyes. The sight made Cervantes chuckle in a low voice, as if the most valuable gem in the world had finally fallen in his grasp.

"Not bad for a bloated harlot. Aye, cap'n?" one the pirates asked. The rest of the crew laughed clamorously in agreement.

And then they all died.

Velvet suddenly jerked her arm, causing her globe to hover outward and sprout long crystal spikes that stabbed all the way up toward the edge of the cliff. At least ten of the pirates were impaled instantly.

The globe spun violently and focused its unnatural forces to stir the ocean into a screaming water tornado. Viola extended her right hand, making her four metal armor claws fly off the rings on her fingers and transform her spell into a whirlpool lined with spinning razors. The entire pirate horde was skewered to bloody pieces and tossed over the cliff to join the rest of the ill-fated sailors decorating the shoreline. Viola easily butchered the whole crew while never leaving the top of the ocean crag.

Turning himself into fish chow was not exactly the brilliant plan Cervantes had in mind.

The metal claws returned to their owner and neatly slid back over her nails. The globe slowed its spinning and returned next to her shoulder. Now that the vengeance of the wrathful sea was all squared away, Viola was free to make the most of her newly plundered mortality.

A nest of increasingly longer black tentacles rose out of the depths and formed a squirming staircase in front of Viola. The oracle lightly placed one laced purple boot in front of the other and ascended off of the narrow crag while never losing her footing. She gracefully followed the tendrils upward until they took her all the way to the edge of the cliff.

Viola walked down from the sacrificial mound as the tentacles retreated back into the black ocean behind her. Her thoughts were filled with mystery, ambiguity, and spontaneity. Her spirit yearned to experience the brightness and commotion of the mortal world again so she could sprawl through it like a dark tide.


End file.
